Exotic

~ punt the mirror ball ~

We should talk.

The text came from Caleb's number, ominously short. It also came at eleven pm on Sunday night, after an entire weekend of not-entirely-undeserved radio silence from both Proust siblings.

It had given me plenty of time to think, fret, and reconsider my life. But the second Caleb texted me, I bolted upright, responding in a matter of seconds. All rationality went out the window, along with the plan to give Caleb his space and take back my own until he figured out how he really felt about me.

free now?

Ellipse. Ellipse. Ellipse.

Need to get out of the house. 1 sec.

I peeled myself out of bed and climbed into my drag wardrobe as I waited for him to call. The mirror reflected a face I winched at the sight of. My pores were looking huge, and the bags under my eyes were pronounced. I applied a layer of moisturiser under each, and then my phone rang with an incoming call.

"Hey."

"Hey," Caleb replied, sounding slightly breathless. I waited in vain for a follow-up, as he breathed down the line.

"You alright?"

He laughed breathily. "Well, I'm grounded which I didn't know was a thing parents could still do after you turn eighteen. My mum wanted to confiscate my phone too, but dad stepped in. And my entire family thinks I have a secret girlfriend named Steph who I've been dating since last year because Lauren decided to flex her improv skills and give my offhanded excuse an entire complex backstory."

I would have laughed, if not for the tiniest of details. "Why do they think her name is Steph?"

Caleb hesitated. I could literally hear crickets over his side of the phone. "I guess she thought she was being funny. Because... yeah."

I groaned. "She cannot fuck us around like this."

"She's adamant you deserve it, after you made her pretend to be your girlfriend," he said through gritted teeth. "My parents have been quizzing her all weekend. She might kill you."

"Yeah well, I didn't think it would ever come back to bite me," I told him. "Hindsight is 20/20"

"My mum stalked your Instagram," he let me know. "And noticed you don't have any photos of Lauren on your feed, so... if you want to keep that lie going, get to that."

I chewed nervously on my lip. "I'm sorry. I'll tell her I'm sorry."

Caleb sighed, but it lacked the usual sting. He just sounded exhausted. "I'm sorry too. Because I showed your photo to my mother to prove 'Steph' was a real person. The singing one."

My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. "You did what?"

"Look, now she knows that I've been lying about where I've been going, she's on my case," he argued. "I couldn't show her a real girl because she's following up every lead now. I didn't have a..."

"Are there any members of your family who have not seen me in drag?" I demanded. Caleb paused a lot longer than I liked. "Holy shit Caleb..."

"They don't know it's you," he argued. "They don't. They think you're a pretty blonde girl I met at Aidan's birthday party last year. Mum's only comment was that you dress a little scantily. They don't suspect a thing."

I hated how my heart skipped at pretty, before returning to the catastrophe at hand. "And Lauren isn't so pissed at me that she'll drop the truth to any of them?"